Sunday, July 30, 2006

In France in the past, postcards were franked when they were sent and when they arrived at their destination.

They were often written in pencil. Biros hadn’t been invented and fountain pens were an expensive item.

More postcards were produced in the past than are produced today. People used postcards to send short messages like ‘pick me up from the station tomorrow at four o’clock’. The postal service was reliable then!! They were also a way of having a photograph of somewhere. There weren’t so many cameras then and certainly no phones to take pictures with.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

In recent years my husband, Rob has been collecting vintage postcards, mainly of the town where we live, La Rochelle, which has lots of history and interesting buildings. Gradually he started to get duplicate cards and because of this he had the idea of selling cards on eBay. The next stage was a visit to the auction rooms in town one day when they were holding a postcard, coin and stamp auction. Pretty soon we had a collection of beautiful cards from all over France.

For me the fascinating part is reading what was written on the back. All human life is there. The saddest cards are the ones sent by soldiers fighting during the First World War. My mother-in-law contributed a very special card fom Paris which had been sent back to England in 1917. Her mother-in-law had kept it carefully over the years. Her fiance had sent it to her when he was on leave. He was killed the following year.

The card above is one of my favourites. The park in La Rochelle is still the same today.

Postcards

About Me

I'm interested in a lot of things. In recent years I've been selling old French postcards and love researching the history behind them. Sometimes I'm inspired to write a short story about my postcards.

Life begins at 40 but it really gets going in the 50s, then on with the sweet 60s!